Saturday 2 June 2012

Six word stories


In a previous post I extolled the virtues of conciseness. That was a 50 word story. The question is, how short can you make a story, for example, is it possible to have a six word story? Well, maybe not a story as such, but it is possible to evoke a lot of thought with only six words... and some very famous writers have done it. Here are a few examples:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Ernest Hemingway
Longed for him. Got him. Sh*t. Margaret Atwood
The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly. Orson Scott Card
Kirby had never eaten toes before. Kevin Smith
Steve ignores editor's word limit and... Steven Meretzky
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time Alan Moore
Every one of them makes you think... you make up the story in your head. I think it’s magical. But could the ordinary man or woman in the street do it? Of course they could. I started a post on the KINDLERS CRAFTING, HOBBIES AND GENERAL INTEREST FORUM and invited folk there to post their stories. Here are a few brilliant examples:
Joined a craft forum... made friends. Ken.
I Came, I Saw, I Conquered. Julius Caesar (Submitted by Maria - and to be fair Julius actually said ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’ which would have been disqualified for over-brevity)
Heart available again: One broken owner. Kaska
All these were super, but the best of all, in my opinion, was from BJT whose story followed on from Ernest Hemingway’s ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn....
For sale: baby - already have several.

I tried the same thing on the KindleUsersForum and again I was amazed by the variety and inventiveness of the entries. Here are some that caught my eye.
Were-hamster goes on small rampage.  Lexi Revellian
Died of hay fever. No flowers.  B J Burton
Footprints pointed away from abandoned crutches.  Jennie Lee
Why kiss my neck? Ouch. Oh.  Amanda Leigh Cowley (do you believe in vampires?)

Brilliant!
Can anyone do better?

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